The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced the 276 filmmakers who have been just been invited this year to join the Academy, including composers Ramin Djawadi, Joe Hisaishi (a welcome surprise), Henry Jackman, Cliff Martinez, J. Ralph and Aaron Zigman; songwriters Siedah Garrett and Prince (you know, that guy); and music editors Ramiro Belgardt and Jennifer Dunnington. They also invited composer Normand Roger, but into the Short Films and Animation Branch, since his specialty is scoring animated short films, and Miriam Cutler, whose many scores for documentaries include the nominated shorts Poster Girl and Kings Point, was invited into the Documentary Branch.

I am on vacation this week, so if anything important happened in film music since the beginning of July, you are highly unlikely to find it here. Actually, looking here is probably your best bet. Happy 4th of July weekend! (cue Bill Pullman saying "This will be OUR INDEPENDENCE DAY!")

"The sex jokes and performances are as broad as a barn, but it’s a stylishly painted one: the design, right down to the crisp red-and-white trim on the stewards’ spiffy sky-blue uniforms, is delicious, and the lush orchestral score by longtime Almodóvar collaborator Alberto Iglesias slyly references both Hitchcock thrillers and classic disaster films."

Dana Stevens, Slate.com

"The tech crew is largely composed of Almodovar stalwarts, with Alberto Iglesiqas’ score drawing on classic cinema suspense tropes to comically bathetic effects, while d.p. Jose Luis Alcaine squeezes the maximum from the inevitably restricted palettes available to him."